Elspeth McLean:

Hallowe'en, sex, andthe value of
pledges

Ten years on, the wounds are still raw and ugly. When
the book is written about the damage I have caused as a parent, the
incident will be writ large.

According to the offspring's version of it, after ruling out
trick-or-treating back in 1990, I said they would be allowed to
participate the following year. When October 31,
1991, rolled around, I denied making any such
promise. While their friends were out pounding the pavement in
hastily cobbled together costumes exhorting people to give them
things, they were at home being truculent and miserable.

I deny it vehemently to this day. I have tried to employ cool
calm logic to explode the myth the First and Second Born have
created. The other two were thankfully too small to remember
their brothers' flight of fancy, although they have perfected sounding
supportively indignant.

"What on earth would possess me to say you could do it when you know I
have always thought trick or treating was an unpleasant Americanisation of
a Celtic tradition we could well do without?

"What's more, don't forget your inability never to let go of an
argument was as evident 10 years ago as it is now. Why would I
want to run the risk of having this thrown up at me every Hallowe'en for the
rest of my life?"

This reasoning cuts no more ice with them this year than it did last year
or the years before that.. They know I am in denial.
They are convinced I made this rash promise just to stop them nagging in
1990 and that I had no intention of following through with it
anyway. That makes it hurt all the more, in their eyes.

I've told them they should have got me to sign a pledge. They
agree. It's the sort of simplistic solution that appeals to many
of us. If their memory of the event were true, I could
have signed a pledge saying I would let them trick or treat in '91,
but what would have happened if I had grave reservations between one October
and the next? Would I have been allowed to change my
mind? What worth would my pledge have? And what if
they had decided it wasn't such a good idea, after all?
Could I try and force them to comply with the intent of my pledge,
just to be bloody minded?

I have similar reservations about the pledge some 13-year-olds have been
signing as part of the Straight Talk programme, run by
Australian Presbyterian layman, Jim Lyons, and his wife,
Faye.

According to reports I've read, those who had decided to sign the
pledge were asked to pray to God for forgiveness -- forgiveness
for what? The pledge itself apparently said: "Believing
that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself,
my family, those I date, my future mate and my future children
to be sexually pure till the day I enter a covenant marriage relationship."

What is the worth of this public type of commitment? Are you
ready to make it at 13? What happens if, a few years down
the track, you change your mind and decide to have sex with someone to whom
you are not married? Will you have to worry you have offended
God, yourself, your family, those you date, your
future mate and your future children?

And what about the teenagers who might already suspect they are
gay? I bet they didn't rate a mention in this whole
production. Only the heterosexual must be allowed to suppress
their sexual feelings. Gays and lesbians don't
exist. (I am pleased to note the Post Primary Teachers
Association is not burying its head in the sand on the existence
issue -- it's distributing guidelines to schools this
month on the treatment of gay and lesbian teachers and students).

It is easy to be seduced by the idea that if you tell teenagers often
enough that something is stupid or wrong -- and this pledge
business is just a "moral" way of saying sex before marriage is wrong
-- that eventually they will stop doing it. We wouldn't
have an explosion of teenage smokers if that were the case.

True, many teenagers have got the message about drinking and
driving but that's because they can see that teenagers can die as a result
of it. Sex can kill people too but not usually when they are
teenagers.

When we have given teenagers all the information they need to make
sensible decisions about sex, should we do more to show them how they
are bombarded by sex in the media? Do we do enough to make them
see how calculated and invasive the whole sex message is? Do we
encourage them to realise it would be much more rebellious not to go along
with the superficial view of sex promoted?

And when we have done all that, and shown as parents that we are not
afraid to talk about the subject when required, we need to remember
sex is a personal thing and, ultimately, teenagers will have to
decide what they are going to do. Some will make good decisions
and some will make bad ones. Whatever decisions they make they
will have to live with daily.

At least I only have to hear about the trick or treating saga once a
year. Although, come to think of it, without a
couple of sexual decisions from me and my husband, the annual slanging
match would never have been possible. That's the trouble with
sex. It's a complicated business. It's not easy for
any of us to see all the repercussions.